Stress Management
by Sirhith
Summary: Another bad day gets worse when Jess and his black eye find out Rory doubts the football story.


A/N: I realized I'd given the worst possible way to treat a nosebleed, so that's been changed. I am the dumb one, not Rory.

* * *

So far, today had been stupid. Normally Jess would have skipped the physics test like everything else, except this one was something like 40 percent of his grade. Of course on the way back to his car, some clueless hall monitor caught sight of his yellowing black eye. He wasted 45 minutes in the counselor's office, denying fights and explaining that Luke's idea of punishment was hiding the power cord to the stereo, and all that got him was late to Walmart for his afternoon shift.

He's trying to decompress now, because what he actually wants to do is put a hole in the apartment wall, and if that happens Luke will make him waste a Saturday replastering it. So that means lying on the couch and reading _Our Band Could Be Your Life_ until his pulse stops wanting to beat out of his wrists.

"It's open," he calls out to the knock at the door.

Rory steps into the room, one hand on her backpack strap. "Hi."

"Hey."

She shifts the bag off her shoulders and comes closer to set it on one of the kitchen chairs. "How's your eye?"

"Functional."

After kissing him hello she pauses, still leaned in towards his face. "Jess - "

"What." She's got that clipped voice he can't stand, meaning she's about to criticize whatever he's doing. But he pulls his socked feet in toward himself and lets her sit at the other end of the couch, because he's not a total shithead.

"It still looks awful."

"Looks worse than it is." He props the book against his angled legs and turns a page.

"Did you put anything on it?"

"What, like a monocle, or somethin'?" Greg Ginn from Black Flag was making zines when he was twelve. Fascinating.

"I meant medicine. For the cuts."

He breathes out hard through his nose. "Nope."

"But it'll help it heal faster."

He gives her a quick courtesy glance. "Thanks for the tip, Florence Nightingale."

"Okay, if you don't wanna talk about it, fine." It's silent while she looks around at the apartment and the complete lack of conversation starters, unless there's a whole lot to be said about curtains that he's unaware of. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

"In your book."

"Oh." He'd stuck the pamphlet in there earlier. "School thinks Luke's knockin' me around. Thought I should be aware of the fifty different hotlines." He flicks the glossy paper.

She goes pale. "You didn't really let them believe that."

"Of course not. I'm not gonna get Luke in trouble."

"And you wouldn't wanna lie." Some color is back in her face, but she's still perched on the couch, not leaning into the cushions or taking off her shoes like usual. This is going somewhere, and he's not thrilled about it.

"Not about that." So much for trying to zone out to alt-rock history. He flips the book closed and notices she's rubbing the cuff of her school shirt between her fingers.

"What about that football story you told me?"

The bottom drops out of his stomach. "What about it?"

Her voice wavers, but she keeps going. "That's not what happened, is it?"

"Says who?"

"Says me. The more I thought about it… if you're Liam Gallagher, sports are your Noel." That's what he gets for scrambling to come up with a cover in the moment. For trying to channel Dean. Should've known the wonder boy role was already filled. "And Luke may have told me."

"Goddammit." He drops the book, spine first, onto the rug and hoists himself upright, one of his feet crunching a page in the Black Flag chapter. "Luke!" He's able to yell it with a decent amount of volume. In this case it's too loud, but he can't stop.

"It's not his fault." Her voice lands softly, the snow on the battlefield. "I said you told me everything. But then he started talking about territorial swans, and I knew I'd missed something."

He turns on her, feels the jagged snarl on the back of his tongue. "A swan or a football, what's it matter how I got it? Either way it was dumb, it hurt like hell, and I still don't wanna talk about it."

She looks at her hands in her lap, curled around each other. "I just can't believe you didn't wanna tell me."

So apparently no argument they have is ever actually resolved. Fantastic. "Look, I said I'd go to your grandmother's again, didn't I? That's not enough?" He stands up and backs away from the couch.

She drops her hands open, palms up. "So you'd rather eat canapes and hear about the stock portfolio my grandpa had at your age than tell me the truth?"

"That depends. What're canapes?"

"Another word for 'missing the point.'" She brushes a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "It's okay to tell me embarrassing things, you know."

He scoffs. "Not like this, it's not. Gettin' attacked by a swan? Come on. You woulda laughed."

"Never," she says. There are times when an eyebrow raise can't quite say it all, but he tries. "Okay, maybe at first."

"Exactly. I tell you the important stuff, and that's what matters."

"But everything matters," she says. "That's kind of the idea." He drums on the back of a chair while he waits for her to say something else. "Okay, here's an example. Last week when I got a nosebleed all over my history notebook at school?"

He sighs. "Yeah, I remember."

"Right, 'cause I told you about it." When she explains stuff, she talks with her hands. She should teach. Nobody would skip, that way. "I sat in the nurse's with tissues, and that was it. But it happened, so when you asked me about my day, I told you."

"Injuries get top billing, then."

"Well yeah, but you can tell me anything. Even if it's weird, or dumb. Whatever."

That's fine, in theory. "But you're not gonna tell anybody about the swan, right?"

"Of course I won't tell," she says in a soothing voice. "Jess, you can trust me."

"Okay, 'cause if Chuck Presby ever found out - "

She drops her head to one side, her mouth set in a line. "In what world am I gossiping about you with Chuck Presby?"

"No world that's good."

Right then, her backpack chimes. "Not now," she murmurs, but stands up to go dig her pager out from the side pocket. Checking the screen, she says, "I knew it."

"Who's that?" He shouldn't lean over to check the number, and he doesn't know Dean's anyway, but he inches towards the screen ever so slightly.

"Paris." Oh. She frowns at the pager and puts it away. "She's making us put out another double issue of _The Franklin_ because she heard Suffield Academy publishes six double issues a year, and they've won this student journalism award three times."

He prefers his own school strategy by a long shot. "How do you put up with her?"

She shrugs. "She's just Paris. I can handle her most of the time, but I don't know." The way she keeps hovering, just out of his reach with the table between them, makes him crack his knuckles. "I think a lot of stuff caught up to me. I was really hoping my grandma would like you, and then this thing with your eye kind of ruined it, and I've just been worried."

"You don't have to worry about me." Enough other people get on with their lives without doing it. Not a big deal.

"But I do. I can't stop." She looks at him then, so focused and clear-eyed that his guts start to fizz like two warm liters of shook-up soda. "I tried to once, and I was terrible at it." He tries to hold onto that, at least. Because he gets it. Maybe a little. "And it really freaks me out, seeing you look like this. I just want you to be okay."

"I'm okay, I swear." Now he has to worry because she's worried, her eyes are shining, and it's this whole cycle, and it'd be a lot easier if she just called him an asshole. Shane used to do that twice a day.

It's worth reminding himself of what'll happen if Luke catches him lighting up in here (an entire weekend spent washing sheets, shampooing the rug, probably buying them a new couch) because he really wants to chain smoke right now.

He clears his throat. "You wanna walk, or somethin'?"

"Oh. Yeah, I think my mom's ordering Chinese." She breaks eye contact and starts checking the zippers on her backpack before hefting it onto her back. "I should probably go, anyway."

"Rory, stop." He moves around the table to stand in her way.

"What?"

"I meant with me. Go walk with me somewhere. I'm gonna go crazy just standin' around in here."

"Oh." She takes off her backpack again and it looks like she stands taller, feels lighter, without it. "That sounds really good, thanks."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I won't talk about this stuff any more today. I'm sorry I pushed."

"Sorry I yelled." His hand finds hers, and he runs a thumb back and forth over one set of her knuckles. Then he feels her other hand against his waist, crumpling the hem of his shirt as she comes in closer.

When he gets to her lips he hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath, but he exhales through his nose and kind of sinks down into her, and his shoulders loosen up. The dishes clattering around downstairs sound like they're a mile away. It's just her, and the hum of satisfaction she makes when they separate. He's ready to forget about walking anywhere with her besides back to the couch when:

"Oh, but if we see that swan-"

And, moment's gone. But it's fine. "Pssh. You're not gonna do anything to a swan."

"I just meant I was gonna stare him down." Maybe there's still hope. The way her lips curl up in one corner, the glint in her eyes - she could walk into a bank and they'd empty the tills for her, probably thank her for the experience.

"I see." His pants get tight in the crotch whenever she's like this; he can't help it. "Would this be your famous withering stare from New York?"

She purses her lips, considering this. "I don't know if you're ready for that one."

"Maybe I just haven't been bad enough." He skates his teeth over her bottom lip.

"You have a skewed sense of punishment."

"What can I say, I've had a skewed life so far. 'Cept for the you parts." He rubs small circles into her lower back with the pads of his fingers.

"I'm honored."

"As am I." There's a muffled beeping from her backpack. He nods at it. "Your thing's goin' off again."

"Oh. That's nice." She doesn't even flinch, just keeps looking at him through her lowered lashes. And here he'd been thinking that reading a bunch of band facts was the only way to de-stress.


End file.
